Sunday, August 21, 2011

[Comic title: Oversight; alt text: "I felt so clever when I found a way to game the Fitocracy system by incorporating a set of easy but high-scoring activities into my regular schedule. Took me a bit to realize I'd been tricked into setting up a daily exercise routine."]

I guess Randy was reading through the ol' XKCD Sucks archives and remembered that SexKCD was a meme before XKCancerD was even a twinkling in his eye, so he went ahead and wrote about that, and Fitocracy, which I guess is one of those stupid "game your life" things that give you points for doing things.

The alt text is great because it highlights how dumb he is, and nerds in general: he's trying to game a meaningless system that doesn't have any accountability mechanism, and felt, his words, "so clever" when he figured out a way to get a high score in this system. Like he's outwitted it: "Ha, joke's on YOU, fitocracy, I can get a lot of exercise points and it's not even HARD!"

Nothing much to say here. This isn't a joke. This is stick figures having sex coupled with "what is the deal with internet fitness websites? They don't let me log my sex!!!"

oh man, that's great. he's all "here I was, just minding my own business, reading a book while standing around, like I do all the time because I'm so smart, when my milky goddess slammed me against the wall and started sexxing me!"

If I was Randy (that's what she said trololol), I would have put the dropped book near the chair in panel 2, because most people I've met tend to sit when they read.

Incidentally, I find panel 2 more nauseating than the entirety of comic 631 for some reason.

I really like the towel the dude stick figure is wearing in panel 5, because he's never shown to be wearing clothes at any other time, and now that there's a towel he's... more naked, somehow? And does this mean I'm to assume Megan is naked in panel 5?

I agree that the comic is dumb, but I disagree with your criticism of the alt text. Doesn't the "I'd been tricked" part of the second sentence show that he realizes that he was not actually "so clever"? Sure, trying to outwit an exercise website is dumb, but I think he knows he was being dumb.

Randall, you lonely, sheltered loser, if you want to watch the clouds around you then go climb a mountain. Perhaps your cancer-riddled fiancee would appreciate that sort of life-affirming experience instead of seeing that you've written another strip about how likely it is that she'll die. But then you wouldn't be able to make her feel insecure and needy, would you, you twisted bastard?

"I guess the latest one is okay, but only because it got me thinking what would actually happen if you tried that. "

well, unless you got them aimed very carefully, and focussed very well... what you'd get is much the same view as if you looked up and then deliberated unfocused your eyes and looked in different places with each of them.

your eyes do a lot of stuff for you in terms of collating the different images, simply feeding in a pair of video images isnt enough to trick the eye/brain into going 'omg thats totally a 3d cloud!'

The latest comic is pretty artistic,but unrealistic.I've been awed, and slightly scared, plenty of times by just looking up at the stars,though I try not to do that too often coz it gets pointless after a while. You can put yourself into an existential I'm-just-a-speck-in-the-huge-universe mode anytime,which Randall obviously does a lot,and then overuses these feelings in his comics.That said, I still really like the intent behind the idea...unlike the comic where he's just looking into the ground,in this one there's some activity in trying to actually increase depth perception,even if it doesn't really work.This comic is just a widely used trope,and yes, panel 2 totally creeps me out.

At first glance you kind of think "hey, nice clouds, maybe he actually isn't that bad of an artist." But then, maybe you've never tried to draw clouds. Clouds are easy. I'm a crappy artist and I can do good clouds.

Look at the landscape, the half-ass attempt at a city next to giant-randy's feet, the two lone mountains to the left, the dark sketching everywhere else meant to indicate what, a forest, I guess?

Yeah, there's about as much talent here as there is in your average guy who took an art class in high school years before.

This comic is concerning because in the last panel the guy is wearing a towel, which suggests that everyone in every previous xkcd has been actually naked. Wouldn't really be that surprising since this is sexkcd that we are talking about, but it is an interesting point

xkcd 941: simultaneously too un-joke-able to be a comic, and not accurate enough to be a blog post. Neither a passable comic, nor a passable blog post, this poor creature must straddle the difference and exist as a shit version of both.

It is, however, the greatest goddamn goatkcd of all time. I know I say that a lot, but disregard my previous statements because this time it is true.

Do I detect a double standard? If you replaced the second panel of 631 with goatse, would the universe explode?

@Anon 12:36, this is old news, although thanks for bringing it up again. Some of us may have missed it first time.

@R. Speaking as a QC fan, I don't think comic 1996 is not bad, it's part of a bigger storyline, which is why some people get confused. QC straddles the line between story-based dramedy and gag-a-day comic (the latter is the reason why it has a 'random' button). Your mileage may vary as to how successfully this is pulled off. It's a bit like what Ves said about xkcd. But if you like it, then it is passable in both categories.

Regarding Randy's old post, I don't see why he feels so strongly about this. The whole point of social networking is to put yourself out there for others to see, hence things like profile pictures and names. I fail to see how concealing your gender will in any way "protect" these (presumably) helpless females.

There's white knighting and then there's just grasping for straws to appear "noble."

As any xkcd fan will proudly inform you, I am a faggot who lives in my mom's basement and nothing gives me greater pleasure than gazing at a distended anus for extended periods of time. For you see I am so hideously ugly that no being, male or female, will ever come within 5 feet of me and thus this is the only thing left that will grant my cynical, jaded penis an erection.

Also, as a QC reader ('fan' is a rather strong word), it's not been too bad recently. It's nothing to write home about, never really has been, but it's a nice enough way to start off the day and I do sincerely respect Jeph's dedication to improving his artwork. If nothing else, he works hard at what he does.

"....For you see I am so hideously ugly that no being, male or female, will ever come within 5 feet of me and thus this is the only thing left that will grant my cynical, jaded penis an erection....."

If neither male nor female, and presumably no intersex either, beings will come within a metre and a half of you pray tell how did your penis become cynical and jaded?As this 'gazing' is the only thing left, what were your options for erectitude at the begining? You know, when you were young and impressionable?

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the airAnd feather canyons everywhere, i've looked at cloud that way.But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.So many things i would have done but clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,From up and down, and still somehowIt's cloud illusions i recall.I really don't know clouds at all.

Moons and junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feelAs every fairy tale comes real; i've looked at love that way.But now it's just another show. you leave 'em laughing when you goAnd if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,From give and take, and still somehowIt's love's illusions i recall.I really don't know love at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud to say "i love you" right out loud,Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, i've looked at life that way.But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they sayI've changed.Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,From win and lose, and still somehowIt's life's illusions i recall.I really don't know life at all.

How did it make you feel when you heard Judy Collins sing it better than you do?Are you aware that your 40 or so years of smoking has made you sound like Joe Cocker? Your little giggle at the end of "Big Yellow Taxi" sounds like the call of a rutting moose now.

You know how the Greeks were always coming up with crazy punishments for their mythological beings? I think there should have been one about some mortal—let's call him Randallysus—who was caught trying to suckle Hercules' wife, Meganemis, and was punished by having one of Hercules' pubic hairs placed on his tongue that could never be removed for the rest of eternity.

I thought at least the Brits would have some clever riposte about my Leda and The Swan image.Is there no one here with an education in the Classics?

In the last 50 years, so I'm told, the Anglospheric World has gone from teaching Latin and Greek in High School to teaching remedial English in College and University.But fuck me from behind with an iPad, we sure know our ephemeral Pop Culture now don't we?

I now include myself in the Anglosphere - a position I deserve more than most of you lot.

"Has he ever made a comment about your blog, or given a signal that might make you think he reads it? Just curious. "

we know from Aloria's heroic question at that one XKCD gathering that he is aware of our existence and is also aware of the fact that we have a bunch of meta-blogs (ie 'xkcd sucks sucks' etc). he claims not to actively read it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't stop in from time to time.

however! at no point during this or any review do I actually assume Randy is paying any attention to us over here. it's just a narrative conceit that amuses me.

942: Wow, okay. So did anyone else see the "Five-Minute Comics, Part 4" that was accidentally posted on Friday? The juggling comic was one of the comics that was in that giant chunk of hastily-made garbage.

So this juggling comic was thought up in a matter of minutes! Literally! It's been redrawn, but otherwise it's a very simplistic idea. Not terribly funny, just sort of an "Oh, okay."

I expect that we'll see some of the other comics from the Five-Minute Trash in the near future. Randy spent probably 30 minutes making 8 lame comics, and now he's going to post them as if they were meant to stand on their own. Even though they were originally compiled as a bunch of half-assed comics created as a game.

Some of us are gonna, you know, like, hack Fitocracy because Randall is totally right, they totally should like reward having sex why are you exercising plus it gets your pulse up right we're going to like hack wikipedia too at the same time so it matches and fitocracy will have to accept it since so many people go to wiki first. I was totally thinking that after i saw the cartoon and went to fitocracy that they totally should have sex as an exercise like a sexercise i was all wow, randall just puts it out there what you really think he's like a mind reader it's synchronicity. By the way this is a joke site, correct, no one would bother maintaining some sort of xkcd hate site.

I don't have the words. I've always been impressed that people from around the world will devote inordinate amounts of time to the incredible volume of creative output on the internet, even when the majority of the drive for creative output is attention, but to devote one's energy to actually creating and maintaining an active blog just to slam someone else's WEBCOMIC? Seriously? There is a lot of garbage on the internet, but I don't think I've ever seen someone create something so pathetic as this blog. You must lead a very unhappy life."If everyone else is an asshole, it's probably you."

I like your restrained use of all-caps. Using it to only emphasize one word is a good stylistic choice. Could have been better, though. The quote at the end feels shoehorned in. Try to use the rant as a lead-in, otherwise it looks disconnected.

3:15, why would you use the second shittiest comic in the English language to deride this blog for seeing through the bullshit that is XKCD-mania? Why do you insist on having no taste? You are a shitty person that reads shitty comics.

Also, 4:48. It doesn't take much time to hate XKCD. Randall makes it a brief activity by publishing shitty ass-fuck comics. The thought "oh God another shitty XKCD" takes a mere moment to materialize, and formulating why any newly cloned attempt at talent by Randall is shitty, a mere few more. Randall makes God-awful shitty comics. And if you like them you are shitty and have no taste.

People who like XKCD (and Penny Arcade) are like people that only order chicken & fries even though they are not children. They've never grown up and prefer to eat mediocre, bland shit rather than leave their comfort zone and develop some damned taste.

You guys are all pathetic, how sad does your life have to be to spend so many minutes in a day checking a hate-blog??? And since we all know that nobody takes joy in creative writing, you all clearly are just jealous that you couldn't make your own webcomic and need to circle-jerk each other to feel better about the empty minutes in your day that could have been filled with exploring the world, or lactating!

Penny Arcade, while it bores ME to death because (a) I'm not a gamer, (b) I'm not a gamer, and (c) I'm not a gamer, is really not in the top ranks of bad webcomics because, obviously you have to make room for the imitators (ctrl-alt-del and PVP for 2 and probably the real number is in 2 or 3 figures) that are far worse, correct?

While matters of taste are impossible to dispute with some sort of scientific accuracy (unless it's cilantro, which Big Science is currently trying to force us haters into agreeing is actually multiflavorous and we're damaged mutants), I think my reasoning above is solid.

While I'm thinking about it, there's a certain cleverness to xkcd. Unlike Penny Arcade, e.g., it's not really widely imitated - because there's so little to imitate. "Oh, I do a stick figure and nerd pride jokelike-object-a-day webcomic TOO! But my lack of art is different from xkcd's because .. oh damn."

Penny Arcade might not be the second shittiest, but why argue about what shade of shit a shitty shit is?

I'm not advocating some classist sense of "good taste," merely that people actually have some taste. I used to eat lunch with some of these tasteless types and they would order chicken & fries again and again no matter where we went. If it didn't have something utterly bland on the menu, we had to decide on somewhere else to go. Not coincidentally, they are all the XKCD-loving type.

And that's what a lack of taste is: you settle for something comfortable and bland without "tasting" the other possibilities the world has to offer. It's sad and shitty.

"at no point during this or any review do I actually assume Randy is paying any attention to us over here"

I might believe that, if I hadn't read this one first:

"I guess Randy was reading through the ol' XKCD Sucks archives and remembered that SexKCD was a meme before XKCancerD was even a twinkling in his eye, so he went ahead and wrote about that, and Fitocracy (...)"

Come on. You have your own followers, that's cool. Enjoy them for what they are worth, you don't actually need the XKCD guy himself to read your blog. Why would you?

"I'm not advocating some classist sense of "good taste," merely that people actually have some taste. I used to eat lunch with some of these tasteless types and they would order chicken & fries again and again no matter where we went. If it didn't have something utterly bland on the menu, we had to decide on somewhere else to go. Not coincidentally, they are all the XKCD-loving type."

"Penny Arcade might not be the second shittiest, but why argue about what shade of shit a shitty shit is?

I'm not advocating some classist sense of "good taste," merely that people actually have some taste. I used to eat lunch with some of these tasteless types and they would order chicken & fries again and again no matter where we went. If it didn't have something utterly bland on the menu, we had to decide on somewhere else to go. Not coincidentally, they are all the XKCD-loving type.

And that's what a lack of taste is: you settle for something comfortable and bland without "tasting" the other possibilities the world has to offer. It's sad and shitty."

Am I the only one off put by the new girl? Her hair is longer than Megan's, and since that's the only way to tell stick-people apart different hair= different girl. It's just really weird right after trumpeting how awesome his cancer girlfriend is.

There is no way that Penny-Arcade is on the same level as XKCD. You don't have to like it, I actually find Mike and Jerry much funnier in person in PATV because I don't care about games anymore, but Mike can actually draw. That is not true of XKCD or CAD or the millions of generic shitty gaming webcomics, and I am pretty sure there is more thought put into a Penny Arcade strip than a VG Cats strip, except Scott takes a month to think of the same easy videogame joke.

Yes, but Penny Arcade produces a rant AND a comic which are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS in TWO DIFFERENT PLACES, so it's not like people who hate Tycho's rants are forced to read it in any way if they want to just look at the comic. As opposed to... y'know.

You are just not very good at this. I am sorry I didn't make this more obvious, but this is what we regular people call a "game". I understand social cues are reaaaally complicated and sometimes a little scary, but you will get the hang of them eventually.

For once, it's about language. "Will" is used both for the Future tense and to express desires in English, which is quite dumb. It's kinda funny to people with a different mother tongue, like me, but it's probably confusing and boring to the majority of Randall's audience.Also - It looks like a five-minute comic. Can someone who saw them before Randy dropped Part 4 in a Memory Hole confirm ?

@Lucas: No. You're remembering something you vaguely learnt in a beginners' English class - some archaic remnant of the difference between willan vs sculan in Old English - but it has nothing remotely to do with this strip.

If he's playing with double meanings then you'd do better to note that "apparent" has two opposing meanings in common usage, so in fact Randall did not really want to marry Megan after all.

@2:47 Thanks !@3:00 I'm not even talking about linguistics, I'm just saying it seems like a contrived wordplay (clearer to those unfamiliar with a proper use of the English language, such as Randy) to me. When you say "will you marry me ?" you're not asking about a factual forecast, you're asking about what your fiancée wants in the present. Here Randall acts as if "will" had the same value as in "will the tumor obstruct the lactiferous ducts ?". Hence the reference to the scientific method in the title. If Megan had said "do you want to marry me", the "joke" would be destroyed... So if this is not a play with the word "will" then I need an explanation too... :-/

@Lucas You are asking about a factual forecast: asking the question implies that you want to marry and whether you will actually proceed to try to marry depends on the other person's wishes. English, being more evolved than most languages, internalises the notion of will and recognises the uncertainty of future events.

No-one likes people who whine all the time, regardless of the subject. It's not funny, nor rage inspiring nor anything else worthwhile. It's slightly annoying and enough to keep most people at a distance. It's like you're all actively trying to be the lamest bunch on the interwebs.

Q: What's more boring than a boring web comic? A: People who whine about a boring web comic.

@ 6:03 I'm not saying that the verb expressing the future tense should imply certainty. What I'm saying is that "will", when followed by "you", usually means "do you desire to ?". And here Randall acts like it means "do you think this event is going to happen LOLEMPIRICISM", which is the meaning of "will" in many other contexts. That's the joke.

Sorry I said it is "quite dumb", if that's what bothers you; I didn't mean to denigrate the English language (on the whole, it's both the most beautiful and the most efficient language I know about).

For some reason my internet connection is currently refusing to display xkcd. I initially hoped this was because The Singularity had happened in my router and as well as intelligence it had developed taste, but I could get onto CAD so bang went that theory.

Anyway, that's why I've not made an incisive comment about the quality of the latest one. Also because I am unable to make an incisive comment on anything due to being a bitter twisted fool with an IQ of roughly 10.

http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1096 <-- despite this, I still think the minimalism / lack of distinct qualities of xkcd makes it way harder to imitate than, e.g., Penny Arcade. And *that* said, I underestimated the lack of shame of xkcd fans/knockoff originators. Probably.

I'm guessing Megan comes from a wealthy family and Randall desperately needs a source of income more stable than t-shirts and giving "talks" to masturbating geeks.

It makes sense that the hypocrite who claims to put value on hard, rational thought but makes a living drawing stick figures should go to the next level and live off an inheritance from his cancer-savaged dead wife.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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